Challenging earlier findings, two studies from the Heritage Foundation reported yesterday that young people who took virginity pledges had lower rates of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and engaged in fewer risky sexual behaviors.

The new findings were based on the same national survey used by earlier studies and conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services. But the authors of the new study used different methods of statistical analysis from those in an earlier one that was widely publicized, making direct comparisons difficult.

...Those who made pledges were less likely to engage in vaginal intercourse, oral sex, anal sex and sex with a prostitute, and they were less likely to become prostitutes than were adolescents who did not take such a pledge, the Heritage team said.

They may not prostitute themselves sexually, but they'll prostitute themselves.

Seriously, I would guess (and that's a little more empirical than what the Heritage Foundation researchers did) that the decision to become a prostitute is driven by factors mostly unconnected to sex education and any difference is largely arbitrary.

As for less teens having vaginal intercourse. In truth, that figure is beside the point. The more critical queston: are they more or less likely to have vaginal intercourse (or anal sex or oral sex) without a condom?